The Appeals Court concluded that the applicable state law is not ambiguous, and the trial court erred in construing it to mean convicted felons are only prohibited from possessing unmodified firearms.

On Monday, the judges ordered the trial court to reinstate the charge against Willie Leon Farthing, 33. The mandate was filed Wednesday in LeFlore County District Court. Farthing is set for trial Aug. 11.

Farthing was bound over trial on Oct. 28, 2013, for allegedly knowingly concealing stolen property, conspiracy, second-degree burglary and possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony. After arguments on a defense motion to quash the firearms charge, Judge Bill Welch dismissed the firearm charge.

In his ruling, Welch agreed with defense attorney Doug Schmuck that based on a 1973 court ruling, state law does not prohibit the possession of an unmodified rifle by a convicted felon, and that the language, “or any other dangerous or deadly firearm,” later added to the statute by the state Legislature referred only to weapons specifically listed in the law and not to unmodified rifles.

After Welch’s dismissal of the firearm charge, First Assistant District Attorney Marion Fry announced his intent to appeal the ruling, and Farthing’s trial was postponed, pending the Appeals Court decision.

Farthing, who has three prior out-of-state felony convictions, is accused of planning with two other individuals — his girlfriend, Jennifer Ella Wilkerson, 33, of Poteau and Daniel J. Woodral, 33, of Heavener — to break into the Heavener home of Rick and Betty Ford shortly after Christmas 2012. According to court records, on Jan. 14, 2013, law enforcement officers allegedly found Farthing with a four-wheel ATV and a .22-caliber rifle that had been reported stolen from the Ford residence. According to court records, in an Oct. 4, 2013, plea agreement, Wilkerson was convicted of second-degree burglary. Woodral is scheduled for jury trial on June 16 on charges of knowingly concealing stolen property and knowingly disposing of stolen property.

In the Appeals Court opinion written by Vice-Presiding Judge Clancy Smith, the court stated, “Under the plain and ordinary language of the current statute, a rifle is a dangerous or deadly firearm.”

To conclude that it is not dangerous or deadly, the court would have to rely upon canons of construction, the opinion states.

Canons of construction are a system of rules and maxims used to help courts determine what a law’s writers meant by the language they used in the law.

The use of such construction is proper only when the language of the statute contains ambiguity, and “here there is none, and thus we are bound by the Legislative intent as expressed through the plain language of the statute,” Smith wrote.